abgrund - 2012

nothing is without alternative except one’s own death - and that can only be said according to the current state of research.
nothing is unavoidable and those who conjure up fatality only do so to evade responsibility.
in order to justify the impossibility of change it is claimed that the systems have become too complex.
best not touch anything, it could break!

the problem is not the complexity of modern democracies.
the motives for exploitation are not complicated.
greed isn’t complicated, waste isn’t complicated, indifference isn’t complicated.
murder and expulsion aren’t complicated.
on the contrary: they describe the greatest possible simplification of human existence - the reduction to gain and loss.
no more complicated is our own entanglement.

one thing that’s complicated is the confusion into which this joint responsibility leads us.
what’s also complicated is that we recognise how unjustly wealth is distributed but that we’re hardly willing to change anything about it.
what’s complicated is that we pass on our own responsibility onto a system.
what’s complicated is that we believe that we own freedom.

the human is a citizen of two worlds, the one that is and the one that could be.
we have to contrast the might of the factual with the drafts of the possibilities.
for this, we need, amongst other things, music, art, newspapers and books that are more than objects of investment or decoration.
we need talks across borders that want more than the assurance of one’s own privileges.
we need an art of which we may expect more than temporary distraction from the impertinence of everyday life.
we need more of the kind of awareness that describes my instant freedom as the kind of prison from which i haven’t yet fled.
for we can’t be free, but we can free ourselves.